


Outside of a Dog

by StarlingGirl



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Character Death, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 16:51:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9451016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlingGirl/pseuds/StarlingGirl
Summary: 'And so, day to day and town to town, it’s only Jack who's stuck by him. Horse doesn’t care if he wins at cards, only that he wins enough to keep him fed. No never mind to Jack how the food in his belly was obtained.'* * * * * *Faraday cares too much about that goddamn horse, and Vasquez knows that it'll bring them to trouble, one day.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have a surprising number of emotions about Jack (the horse), and I'm glad to see he's already got his own AO3 tag. While this is set in an AU: everybody lives, the circumstances aren't particularly relevant.
> 
> Title is stolen from Groucho Marx, who of course stated that outside of a dog, a book was a man's best friend. Faraday prefers horses. Get you out of town faster when people would like their money back.
> 
> You can find me at sofaradaysogood.tumblr.com and I selectively accept prompts!

For a long time, Jack was the only steady friend that Faraday had.

Charming as Faraday might be, he’s discovered that feelings can sour all too quick. Between drunk and sober, winning and losing, rich and poor, a man too often finds it in his heart to blame his newest friend, sat at the table across from him and holding all his cash for all his present difficulties.

Amazing, how petty and small-minded men can be towards their friends when there’s money involved. Truly astounding. Faraday thinks it’s a sham when a man will turn to talk of cheating rather than accept he’s lost. After all, he’s a sharp card-player, and an honourable man. Mostly.

     Not honourable enough to give them a chance to win their money back, of course.

And so, day to day and town to town, it’s only Jack who's stuck by him. Horse doesn’t care if he wins at cards, only that he wins enough to keep him fed. No never mind to Jack _how_ the food in his belly was obtained.

He’d won in him in a game of cards. The man placing the bet had been sly and a little smug, which Faraday had considered odd given that he’d already lost most everything he had to give. When the cards had been laid down, and Faraday had won (again), the man had only offered a derisive snort.

“I win either way, with that one,” he’d muttered, and had jammed his hat on his head and told Faraday to come by in the morning for what he was owed.

He’d half-suspected some trick – a makeshift posse, ready to claim back what they saw as rightfully theirs – but the man had met him at the door and coughed up a phlegmatic laugh and led him ‘round to the fields.

There’d been plenty of horses, and all of them notably distant from the one red bay stallion by the gate, snorting and tossing and pawing, impatient at nothing at all. The man had tipped his head to one of his men and the horse had reared at his approach, front legs pawing wildly at the air before they land again.

Suddenly, Faraday had understood the man’s cryptic comment of the previous evening.

“You have fun with him, _cowboy_ ,” the man had said, and laughed another rasping laugh, and slapped Faraday on the back in high good humour.

Never one to back down from a challenge, Faraday had strode up to the beast, bold as brass and with his heart knocking fit to batter his ribs open, and slid a hand into its mane. “Well, looks like you and I are friends now,” is what he thinks he’d said, and the horse had apparently been so confused by this lack of fear that he’d only snorted and blinked his big, dark eyes.

The horse’s former owner had pronounced Faraday suicidal when he’d asked for a saddle, but had given it willingly. “I’ll be collecting it again soon enough,” he’d said, another cruel grin sharp against tobacco-stained teeth.

“What’s his name?”

“That beast? We never gave him one. Fit for nothing. Too wild.”

And maybe that’s what had brokered this understanding between them. The fire singing out in both their blood for what might be just over the horizon, and the distaste for it expressed by other men. By this time, an audience had gathered – cowboys and farmhands just waiting for a spectacle. Low suspicion had suggested that this wasn’t the first time someone had come to claim the horse.

Talking had helped. So he’d talked and talked and talked, talked the horse into the name ‘Jack’ after the cards that won him, and talked himself into a heckle or two from the watching men, who wanted their day’s free entertainment.

“You don’t belong behind a fence, do you boy?” Faraday had asked, skating an admiring hand down the newly-dubbed Jack’s neck and receiving a soft whicker in reward. “Let’s show ‘em.” And it’s stupid, to think that a horse could understand a man, but Jack had pawed the ground, once, like an agreement, and barely shifted as Faraday had saddled him up.

He’d figured to let the horse get used to him, to stick to the fields. But the feel of so much power under him, so much coiled muscle ready to fly, had been too much to ignore. And besides, he didn’t like the way the men at the fence were nudging each other, waiting for what they deemed the inevitable.

So he’d leaned down close and whispered in Jack’s ear and given him enough rein to do as he pleased. And the moment that his heels dug in, Jack had taken off, gaining speed faster than any horse Faraday had ever ridden, straight towards that fence.

He’d had enough time to see men scattering and the incredulous face of the phlegmatic horse-trader before Jack’s muscles had bunched and he’d _sailed_ over the fence, shoes sparking against the stones as he landed. He didn’t seem inclined to stop and Faraday didn’t seem inclined to make him, and Jack had sped up again with some hidden reserve, eager for the edge of the world he’d known.

Faraday, bent low over his neck, had only been able to laugh.

Might have kept laughing, if two days later he hadn’t woken to a commotion and found that Jack had kicked the horse-trader to death in the night when he’d tried to take back what he saw as rightfully his.

He’d left town pretty quick, after that, even though the sheriff had pointed out that no one can be blamed for a horse’s nervous disposition in the dark.

He’s never had a problem with Jack, ever since. Sure, he doesn’t much like strangers, especially without Faraday there to soothe him, and he gets a little antsy if Faraday leaves him too long – but he’s fast and he’s dependable and he’s oddly affectionate, for a murderous horse. When someone had asked him, once, why he’d been so keen on a horse as to risk his life for it, he’d only grinned and told them, "Outside of a dog, a horse is a man's best friend."

A shrug, a wink; a humorous aside thrown after to distract from too many questions: "It being too dark inside a dog to ride, of course."

The only other person Jack’ll tolerate in the absence of Faraday is Vasquez, and Faraday suspects that’s only through a great deal of patience on the _vaquero_ ’s part - handfuls of oats, and slices of apple, and gentle Spanish reassurances wearing down Jack's distrust fraction by fraction.

             (Or perhaps, Faraday’s trust in Vasquez has just rubbed off.)

Jack isn’t Faraday’s only friend, these days, but he’s still the longest-serving. Faraday makes a show of cursing him out when he plays up, of scoffing at him when he hooks his head over Faraday’s shoulder or nudges him with uncharacteristic gentleness, but it’s easy to see from the way his hands smooth affection against Jack’s flank that he loves that damn beast.

They all know it, and so the moment that a bullet sinks itself in through Jack’s throat is one that plays itself out in sickening slow motion. Jack screams like only a wounded horse can, and rears. Faraday’s used to that, but this time is different; Jack’s balance is thrown wild to one side, and instead of bringing himself back down to all fours, he falls.

Faraday falls too, only just managing to twist his foot from the stirrup to avoid getting crushed. He covers his head, instinctively, as Jack twists, hooves kicking out wildly. He’s waiting for Jack to right himself, to pull himself up – but he doesn’t. Eyes rolling and a lather of sweat at his neck, he whinnies in distress and tries to toss his head.

Faraday’s hand slides against Jack’s neck, and wets itself with dark blood. His face is denial, is disbelief, is desperation. Jack’s kicks grow weaker, breathing strained, and Faraday doesn’t flinch at the shot that barely misses him by an inch.

Goodnight’s rifle takes care of the man who fired it.

Faraday sits, in amongst the blood and the kicked-up dust and the confusion, and holds his friend while he dies, the sucking sound of laboured breaths diminishing to nothing. Like there’s not a gunfight raging around him. Like there’s nothing more important in the world.

When he stands, it’s with a deathly sort of calm. Anger has gone into the forge and come out white hot, hammered into something sharp and tempered in cold water. He pulls his guns as he advances – no showmanship, no light-fingers – and pays no mind to the bullets flying.

One shot at the feet of the man’s horse sends it skittering, nervous. Another sends it rearing; a third and it throws him, twisting in panic.

The man – dark-coated, dust-covered – scrambles to his feet as best he can. He’d dropped his pistol as he fell; he reaches for another at his belt. Faraday is on him before he can get to it.

He doesn’t shoot him. Instead, he brings one of his guns down, hard across the man’s wrist. There’s a crunch, and a yell. The pistol falls from useless fingers, and Faraday takes him by two handfuls of shirt. When the man hits the ground, it’s hard enough to rob the breath from him.

Around him, the gunshots have petered out. The man’s friends are dead or dying, or riding hard for their freedom. Faraday’s barely aware of the others rallying behind him, of Vasquez’s inching his horse just a little closer than the others before he reins in, and waits.

“That,” he says, with quiet ice in his tone, “was my horse.”

The man stares up, wide-eyed.

“Good horse. Might go so far as to say he was my friend.”

The sound of the hammer being drawn back is loud in the sudden silence. The man whimpers, does his best to wriggle backwards, to put some distance between himself and the barrel of the gun. Faraday takes a step forward, then another; a boot finds its place at the man’s throat.

“See, here’s the thing. A fight’s between two men, that’s fair enough. Shoot me, I wouldn’t be thrilled, but I’d understand. Man does what he has to.” The pressure of his boot increases, enough to draw a desperate, choking sound. “But you don’t shoot that man’s friend. Not if you don’t gotta.”

A handful of wheezing syllables, and Faraday tips his head.

“What’s that, now?” He lifts his boot.

         The man’s rasps might be ‘don’t kill me’. Faraday laughs, and it’s cold.

“Kill you? What gave you that idea?”

The shot is loud, the scream that follows louder. It claws its way off the valley walls, and right down Vasquez’s spine. Faraday crouches, and prods the bone-and-bloody mess that used to be a kneecap with the barrel of his gun. He _smiles_ , all grief and wildness.

“I ain’t got much, but I always had Jack.” His words are fierce, despite the grim, dry smile under fire-lit eyes. “Only seems fair I take something in return. Now, I don’t know what you value. Don’t know a damn thing about you. But the way I figure, every man values himself, right enough.”

The man is crying, now, eyes rolling panicked just like Jack’s had. Faraday presses the bloody revolver barrel against the man’s other knee.

A shot rings out.

Faraday rocks back on his heels, almost falls. He stares at the blooming flower of scarlet gore that has opened up across the man’s left eye, pulverizing bridge of nose and cheekbone. When he turns, Vasquez is returning his gun to its holster.

Faraday only stares, disbelieving.

   “Come,” Vasquez says, gentle, and holds out an arm. Faraday holds his stare a second longer and then turns his head back to the prone form of the horse that has served him so well. He ignores the outstretched palm as he rises, wandering back with uneven steps to Jack’s side.

His hands smooth across still flank, smearing Jack’s own blood across his coat. He hears the reluctant retreat of his companions, and viciously hopes that they ride out without looking back. That he is left here, abandoned to the hopelessness he feels rising in his chest.

When Vasquez – on foot now – grasps his shoulder, he almost lashes out. The Mexican pays no mind to it, to the abortive violence still boiling in his blood, and crouches down next to Faraday, too, smoothing a hand across Jack’s coat with no distaste for the blood painted there.

“I’m sorry, _guerito_ ,” he says, softly.

“Why’d you shoot him?” Faraday asks, anger and emotion choking themselves to a thick knot in his throat. “Why’d you let him die so easy?”

Vasquez seems to decide that they might be here a while. He sits, crossing his legs underneath him, facing Faraday and close enough to reach out and touch. Here, in profile, with blood on his hands and spattered across his neck, his shirt, he looks older than he should.

“He’s a bad man. He does a bad thing. But it is not worth your nightmares.” Vasquez watches Faraday’s face carefully. If Faraday needs to fight, he’ll let him. Faraday needs to drink, well, he can do that to. Maybe he just needs to sit, and maybe he needs to cry, and Vasquez won’t tell a soul. But Faraday is by no means a cruel man. By nature, he’s not even all that violent. To do what he’d been planning – to have a man screaming beneath him, to draw blood and bone and pain until it’s too much for a body bear – it will be worse for him, later, than it was for the poor fool who went through it. That, Vasquez will _not_ allow.

Faraday looks vacant. When he speaks, his voice is near breaking.

     “He was my friend.”

Vasquez nods.

     “He didn’t deserve this.”

Vasquez nods again.

      “I don’t know what t’do without him.”

A short silence.

“You ride with me,” Vasquez says.

“That’s not what I mean and you know it!” Faraday snaps. Vasquez reaches out to curl fingers around his _guero_ ’s wrist, firm enough to feel the jack-rabbit of his pulse beneath blood-tacky skin.

“It is enough for now,” Vasquez tells him. “The rest, we figure out along the way.”

When they ride out on the trail of their fellows, it’s with Faraday’s forehead resting soft against Vasquez’s back, arms curled lazy around his middle and betrayed by the way his fingers are grasped into Vasquez’s vest and shirt like they’re afraid to let go.

Riding away from Jack is the hardest thing he thinks he’s ever done. But on the rise of the hill, there’s five men silhouetted against the horizon, and there’s one more solid beneath his touch, who'd let Faraday stay by Jack's side long as he needed, and hadn't minded the cold tackiness of blood on Faraday's fingers when they'd slid against his own. Had helped Faraday up behind the saddle of his own horse, and brushed a gentle kiss, quiet, against his knee before he'd pulled himself up.

There's something soft and hollow behind his ribs, but riding behind Faraday has soothed its sharp edges.

Vasquez is right. For now, this is enough.


End file.
